CONTENTS
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PUBLISHED BY THE STUDENTS OF TOWSON STATE UNIVERSITY
Sports . 7
Entertainment . 3
Classifieds . . . 8
Features . " . 6
Week Watcher . 5
Commentary . 9
Newsbriefs . 10
February 1, 1979
hy it? I can ’t find it !!
Ust you’ve forgotten, it’s that time of year again, time
say good-bye to friends and family, pack a change of
y°0ie8 and a box lunch and go stand in the book store line.
°u might want to see if you can lay your hands on a blank
®velers check or maybe a few ounces of gold. But then
maybe money isn’t one of your problems; maybe
there’s an oil well in your backyard. Of course, if you
don’t want to endure the sensory deprivation brought on
by an Indeterminant sentence in the book line, you can
wait a week and buy books after the crowd thins down.
Don’t worry about trivial details, like falling behind in
class. We all know you’ll never read the books anyway.
TL photo by Cindy Sheesley
374 students dismissed
by George Athas and
Quincey Johnson
the conclusion of last semester,
c* students were dismissed be-
of low grade point averages.
(
^г-
Joseph Cox, vice-president
,jer academic affairs, said the aca-
dismissal rate was about the
Dr. Joseph Cox
same as the fall semester of 1978.
Cox said, “If one checks back a few
years he will find that there are no
drastic changes in the number of
academic dismissals per year.”
Fifteen students were also dis¬
missed after having gone ten semes¬
ters without graduating. Students
must have special permission to at¬
tend Towson State University more
than ten semesters.
Last year’s fall semester ended
with 387 dismissals for lower than
minimum grade point average, with
nine people dismissed after ten sem¬
esters.
First semester freshmen are allow¬
ed two semesters before they can be
dismissed. Cox explained the reason
is the adjustment to college
may interfere with a student's aca¬
demic affairs. Students are given the
second semester to meet the Univer¬
sity’s standard G.P.A. requirements.
Students must also have a cumu¬
lative G.P.A. of 2.0 by their junior
year to avoid academic dismissal.
Figures show that sophomores
consistently suffer the greatest num¬
ber of academic dismissals. Last
semester, sophomores accounted for
160 of the 374 dismissals.
Cox said standards are probably
tougher on transfer students, who
tend to think the level of work
will be the same at Towson State
as at the previous colleges they
attended.
However, transfer students are
given a break because of the “shock
factor” of entering a larger school.
Transfers who earn a 1.5 G.P.A.
their first semester are given a chance
to attain the University’s academic
standards the following semester.
Cox said that any student who
is academically dismissed has the
right to petition the Academic Stand¬
ards Committee for reinstatement,
providing the student has a valid
argument.
Cox said the University retains
about sixty-six per cent of its stu¬
dents each semester. This includes
not only dismissals, but graduates
and transfers who are not expected
to remain.
Car pooling incentives proposed
Energy
High costs may
cut minimester
by Katherine Dunn
Due to rising fuel costs, there may not be another
minimester.
“There is the possibility that it could be cancelled,” said
Dr. Joseph Cox, vice-president for academic affairs, “but
there is also the possibility that it could be retained.”
By discontinuing minimester, Cox said, most of the
buildings could be closed for about seven weeks. The
University would save approximately $80,000 to $90,000 on
fuel during those seven weeks, said Donald McCulloh,
vice-president for business and finance.
One possible change, said Cox, would be to begin the
spring semester around January 21 with commencement
concluding by May 26. The summer session could then
begin in early June and end by August 1. Thus, the majori¬
ty of buildings could be closed for three weeks in January
and all four weeks in August.
The decision would involve changing the academic
calendar and, therefore, must be made by the Academic
Council. It will come before the Council at its March
meeting.
President Hoke Smith will present information gath¬
ered by a task force formed to study the cost of fuel
needed to heat and air-condition the University.
It actually costs significantly more to air-condition than
to heat, said Cox.
Smith said he would not make a specific recommenda¬
tion that minimester be discontinued.
Smith said he thinks there are some valuable programs
continued on page 2
In this respect, he said, those in¬
volved in a car pool should be able
to share a reduced parking fee.
Several problems, however, must
be overcome before this program
Could begin, said Reuwer.
The danger of students abusing
the program by registering their
vehicles in a car pool in order to
pay the reduced fee, but not actually
being involved in a car pool is one
obstacle he cited.
One solution, he said, would be to
develop a special sticker to issue car *
pooling students. For example, a car
pooler might receive a different type
or color parking sticker than other
students.
Another possibility to discourage
violators, he said, would be to block
off a section of the Union parking
lot for car poolers and have a gate
keeper admit only their cars.
Reuwer stressed that these are
only ideas now and any action would
Looking for fellow carpoolers? This travel locater board on the first floor of the
Union Is an effort to help students find others near their homes who are willing
to carpool. More students may be interested in carpooling these days due to the
rising cost of gasoline. Parking services may soon offer an additional incentive
by cutting the cost of parking permits to carpoolers.
TL photo by Cindy Sheesley
will only assign as many car pool
permits as we have spaces.”
A car pool permit will be issued
for at least three people per car.
Each person must fill out a separate
application in the parking services
office, located in University Unior.
room 313. Each applicant must have
a university parking permit.
continued on page 2
by Halaine Silberg
The Student Government Associ¬
ation is now considering a plan to
reduce the University parking per¬
mit fee for carpooling students.
David Reuwer, SGA director of
organizations, said since the park¬
ing fee entitles each student to park
his vehicle on the University lot
every day, it is unfair to the car
pooler whose car is not always on the
lot.
need administrative consent and co¬
operation. He said he hoped to have
a program ready for next fall.
Ted Johns, manager of parking
services urges students to take ad¬
vantage of the student car pool
program as one alternative in con¬
serving energy.
“The more response we get, the
better it will be,” said Johns. “We
lest companies fear possible truth -in -testing laws
*£sl — In a major reversal of
ч1сУ.
five major standardized test
of .^facturers have released a list
Vl Interest Principles” that
many of the points of "truth-
WstinS” legislation that the manu-
thn rers had vigorously opposed in
6 Past.
llJ'Le testing companies emphasize
к
^ still oppose truth-in-testing
Ojj S’ but say they hope to find less
°sive ways of implementing the
(vj.^'Ples in those laws on their own,
“°ut state or federal regulation.
Чп
s4id
0Пе сотРапУ
spokeswomen
W '’be firms still haven't concocted
to actually implement the
ClP*es they now endorse, a com-
k -v critic dismissed the principles
of?art °f a "carrot-and-stick policy
anipulating students.”
;^e principles themselves obli-
0Qjl the five manufacturers — the
'7>(‘ Board, Educational Testing
t^i !ce, Graduate Management Ad
Council, Graduate Record
^‘nations Board, and Law School
'W .
k> 'ssions Council — to find ways
°w students to verify their
kSlasr and to see their completed
fetj ' Lhe manufacturer's also pled-
bin_ redouble efforts to eliminate
‘ts fr,
°m test questions.
Students’ inability to verify their
scores or review completed tests
lead to proposed “truth-in-testing”
laws in California, Colorado, Florida,
Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
A bill creating a national truth-in¬
testing law will be reconsidered in
Congress this spring. New York
passed its law last summer, and it
became effective Jan. 1, 1980.
Test manufacturers, however, claim
such laws force them to cut back on
the number of times they could offer
exams, and to raise exam fees.
The College Board, for example,
says it costs $93,000 to develop
each new Scholastic Aptitude Test
(SAT). If it is forced to make each
test public, the College Board says
it must pass the added expense on
the consumers.
Manufacturers have periodically
made their predictions come true since
the New York law passed and the
national bill was introduced in Wash¬
ington on July 26.
The College Board has cut the
number of times it will offer the SATs
in New York in half, raised its
exam fees, and stopped scheduling
special exam dates for handicapped
students and others.
The American College Testing
(ACT) service is also offering its
tests fewer times in New York,
adding that other states that pass
such laws will suffer similar conse¬
quences.
And on January 7, a week after
New York SAT fees were raised to
$10 for all students and $14.66 for
students who wanted their tests
mailed back to them for review, the
Association of American Medical
Colleges took the truth-in-testing
law to court. The med schools claimed
the law requiring that its MCAT
questions be made public violated its
copyright on the material.
“It’s clearly a case of carrot-
and-stick policy of manipulating stu¬
dents,” says Donald Ross of the New
York Public Interest Research Group,
which lobbied in favor of the truth-
in-testing law.
Ross sees the list of principles,
released Jan. 3, as the Carrot. “It’s
an attempt at self-regulation. When¬
ever an industry is faced with public
regulation, it tries to come up with
a way to regulate itself. The trouble
is that industries can never regulate
themselves as effectively as the
public.”
Mary Churchill of the Education¬
al Testing Service (ETS) in Prince¬
ton, N.J., readily admits the list of
principles was a response to the
legislation.
“The legislation accelerated what
we had been discussing here for sev¬
eral years.” She adds that ETS
had nearly published a similar list
“several years ago, but for one rea¬
son or another decided not to.”
Publication of the list now — al¬
though it incorporates many of the
points in the law — doesn’t mean
ETS is less opposed to the New
York legislation and the truth-in-
testing bill in Washington. “What
we find crippling,” Churchill ex¬
plains, “is the requirement that every
time a test is given it must be
made public.”
The manufacturers’ advocacy of
making test answers public is, she
adds, a principle that the manu¬
facturers are not sure how to put
into practice.
She suspects the manufacturers
will make “public” exams optional.
Students who want their tests back
would pay more and could only take
the exam at a certain time. All
other students would take the exams
at a different time, at a lower cost.
Churchill is no more certain how
the manufacturers would fulfill their
pledge to allow students to verify
their scores. Because of computer¬
ized scale scores, verification is “tre¬
mendously complicated.”
But would self-regulation, as op¬
posed to state and federal regulation,
restore the number of test dates and
lower exam fees to their pre-law levels?
“No,” Churchill says, “I doubt that.
There is going to have to be a
little more test development in any
case.”
In this Issue
■ Theater
Filumena at the Mechanic— Is this
theater or a warmed-over TV sitcom?
Page 4.
Booze
Battle at elbow bend— will the
General Assembly dry out our
freshmen by raising the drinking age
to 19? Page 2.